


Daddy's Taking Us To The Zoo

by Self_Indulgent_TMNT



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Zoo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Self_Indulgent_TMNT/pseuds/Self_Indulgent_TMNT
Summary: You and your husband, Fred Weasley, venture on a day out at the zoo with your children - Minnie, Mona and Arthur.There is no real plot here. It is exactly as described, a thorough description of a day out at the zoo with Fred as your husband and a brood of chaotic children.If you like nonsense fluff then this is for you.Reader is female and regularly referred to as such, and they are written as cisgender. However, I hope there won't be too many/any specific references to that so if you don't identify with that then feel free to read, the story is not at all impacted by it.In a similar vein, reader is written as Hufflepuff but this is rarely mentioned, so you can really imagine any house most of the time.
Relationships: Fred Weasley/Reader
Kudos: 34





	1. Fishies on the Floor

The sun rose early and a shaft of light slipped its way through a small gap in the curtains, coming to rest across your face as you slept. The bright light hauled you a small amount of the way towards waking, but not far enough. You murmured, rolling over in bed and basking in the sweet warmth of existing somewhere between waking and sleeping. Your body bumped into the other in your bed, Fred’s. Unconsciously, you nuzzled into him, and he wriggled to allow more space for you to mould around each other. The two of you were satisfied for a while, but in time you were very vaguely aware of Fred pressing his lips lazily to the top of your head.  
“We should get up” he said, voice low and still a little slurred from sleep.  
Your only reply was a vaguely displeased humm.  
“Well, this was your idea”  
You repeated the noise with even more displeasure.  
“They’re gonna be up soon anyway”  
“Shhh” you replied, blindly drawing a hand across where you assumed his face was as you kept your eyes stubbornly shut.  
He caught your hand, folding in the fingers and kissing each knuckle in turn.  
“Mmmm, that feels nice” you muttered. It was his turn to humm in reply, moving to press those lazy kisses down your jawbone.  
“This is very mean of you” you said, before being cut off as he sucked at your earlobe and you sighed.  
“And why’s that?”  
“Because now I’m awake”  
“But you’re awake in the nicest possible way”  
You felt his body shift and then he was pressing kisses all over your face, sweet and loving but still an attack.  
You opened your eyes.  
Fred’s hair was messed from sleep and you could see from his eyes that he wasn’t fully awake yet, but he smiled down at you and your heart fluttered like you were a schoolgirl noticing him for the first time.  
“And she’s awake!” he cried, grinning.  
“Only sorta kinda. Can’t think of anything better to wake up to, though”  
You pushed yourself up on your elbows, finally returning a kiss.

You and Fred had been together since you’d both been in your sixth year. You’d been the hard working, quiet, nose in a book type and he’d been, well, him. You’d been friendly but distant for years, until one day you were assigned to work together in potions and everything changed.  
You’d both ended up in detention, having been so distracted by how well you were getting on that you’d almost entirely forgotten where you were. Normally you would have been horrified by getting a detention, but Fred made you smile so much that you didn’t care one bit. You’d been basically inseparable ever since.

Fred was distracted from his attempts to get the two of you up the moment you started to kiss him back.   
It wasn’t vital you got up this very instant, he reasoned. After all, what would happen if you just stayed in bed a few more minutes?  
CRASH  
Oh, right.  
Fred pulled away from you. “There seems to be someone in our house” he muttered.  
You paused, pretending to listen hard.  
“Judging by the particular characteristics of the crashing sound I would estimate at three someones. Rather small but especially dangerous.”  
“Do you think we should do something about it?”  
Once again you paused, seeming to think. “Well we could, but then again I’m sure they’ll leave if we just wait long enough.”  
“And how long will that be?”  
Fred leaned down to kiss you again.  
“Oh no more than seven years I wouldn’t say, at least for the larger two”  
“I could stay here for seven years” he murmured against your lips and you smiled. The two of you lingered a moment, before Fred sighed and pulled away from you, rolling to let his legs hang over the side of the bed and sitting up. “What’s all the noise?” he yelled. There was a frantic patter of feet and the excited babble of voices. The door to your bedroom flew open and a whirlwind of red hair flew in as your four-year-old twins arrived, their younger brother struggling to follow behind them on much smaller legs.  
“It was Mona!” Minerva Weasley shouted, jumping up to land on your bed.  
“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t! I didn’t do anything!” her sister, Pomona, replied with all the indignation she could muster, flinging herself on the bed beside her twin.  
Fred gave them a stern stare. “And what was it that Mona did or did not do?”  
“I didn’t do it!” Mona insisted.  
“What didn’t you do?” you asked.  
The girls looked sheepish. Their little brother finally caught up on his tiny legs and stood beside the bed. The two-year old Arthur stared up at you with wide, innocent eyes.  
“Fishies on the floor” he declared.  
You and Fred stared at each other in alarm. “The fish tank” you said, realisation hitting, and Fred was already out of bed and running down the stairs to where you kept a tank of goldfish. You were only a moment behind him, grabbing both of your wands from the dresser.  
“You forgot this” you said, chucking Fred his wand and starting to use yours to turn the tank upright and gather up the water, while Fred located and returned all of the fish to their preferred element. Luckily, the water from the tank had formed a small pool on the floor which had been just about enough to keep them clinging to life until you got there. The fish landed back in the tank, seemingly having made it through their ordeal successfully. You let go a sigh of relief, plunging your hand in the water to realign the plants and decorations which had been dumped in the chaos.  
Fred eyed your now soaking wet pyjama sleeve with a raised eyebrow and, without a word, waved his wand and dried it. You smiled sweetly.  
“You could’ve used magic, y’know”  
“You don’t always have to use magic, Freddie”  
Fred was always a little confused by your insistence on doing many things manually, but it was just what you’d grown used to growing up in a muggle house. He allowed it, though, and had even been converted to some aspects of muggle life.  
You turned your eye back to the fish tank. Its inhabitants seemed perfectly settled. “Sorry for that, guys” you said, taking the pot of food sat on the nearby windowsill and sprinkling a small amount in with them. Then you turned your attention to the base, one you had believed to be well-secured. Apparently, you had been wrong. You pointed your wand and muttered a spell, satisfied to see the tank now bolted very securely to the floor.  
While you’d been busy, the twins had made their way downstairs. Each was holding one hand of their brother to help him down the stairs. Your heart melted at the sight. They might be trouble, but they weren’t deliberately so.  
“Is anyone going to tell us what happened?” you asked. They refused to meet your eyes. Even Arthur was very pointedly looking somewhere else. It seems his sisters had got to him before you could. He was now their ally. You stared them down.  
“No one?”  
“It was an accident” Mona quietly offered.  
“Was it now?”  
“Yes” Minnie confirmed.  
“And who’s accident was it?”  
No further information was forthcoming. They had closed ranks. You had to admire their loyalty, proud to see the Hufflepuff side of their parentage coming through, even if you grew more and more worried by the day that the girls would turn out like the last set of Weasley twins. You adored Fred and George (granted, in very different ways) but you did not envy Molly and Arthur having to raise them.  
Speaking of, Fred had slipped away while you’d been eyeing your brood down and had put the kettle on to boil. You heard him clanking around the kitchen, beginning to get breakfasts ready.  
Your children could hear, too, eyes glancing anxiously towards the door to the kitchen.  
“Is there anything you wish to say?” you asked.  
“We’re very sorry” the girls chimed.  
“Sorry,” Arthur followed suit. You very much doubted the toddler had anything to do with it, but he had lumped in with his sisters and so would share in the punishment. Not that you’d be giving any. You sensed it really was an accident, the children would never knowingly do anything to hurt an animal. Especially not on a day like today.  
“Apologies accepted. Be more careful in future” you said, allowing a small smile. They breathed a collective sigh of relief.  
“We will” the girls chimed again, a phrase they’d said a lot. Arthur just nodded.  
“We still go zoo?” he asked, eyes filled with worry.  
“Yes, Artie, we’re still going to the zoo”  
That was clearly the response they’d been after, as all three faces broke into huge grins and their usual energy was right back.


	2. Monkeys

You followed the children to the kitchen, where they were already sat at the table, helping themselves to their preferred cereal from the boxes sat on the table. Fred placed a jug of milk in front of them, pouring it for Artie but allowing the girls to do their own, just as the kettle began to whistle.  
There were already two mugs sat on the side, all they needed adding was the water, which you poured into them, handing Fred his with a quick kiss.  
“I don’t know if the zoo is such a good idea” he said, “knowing this lot they’d probably find a way to release the lions or something”  
“Can’t be much worse than Harry. Did he ever tell you about the time he released a python and trapped his cousin in a tank in one fell swoop?”  
“Hmmm that’s true, and there was only one of him. Maybe we shouldn’t go, who’s to say what chaos this lot will cause”  
“We’ll be good!” Minnie yelled, dropping her spoon into her bowl, leaving a splash of milk across the table.  
“We will, really we will!” Mona added.  
“Please let us go!” Minnie cried.  
“Of course, we’re still going” Fred said with a grin.  
“Just don’t release any lions. Or tigers. Or bears”, you paused for a moment then very quietly added “Oh my”  
Fred gave you a confused look. You shook your head. “Lions, tigers and bears, oh my. It’s a muggle thing”  
“If I’d known there would be so many ‘muggle things’ in my future I would have paid much better attention in Muggle Studies. I owe Professor Burbage an apology.  
“We’ll just name a child after her or something, that’ll do it” you joked as you put some bread in the toaster, one of the many muggle gadgets you insisted were in your home.  
“Babe, we can’t keep naming children after Hogwarts professors” Fred said, not entirely sure if you were joking or not.  
“Why not, worked with these two”, you gestured towards where Minnie and Mona were wolfing down cereal and orange juice in between talking faster than you could track.

After discovering you were having twin girls, you had worked very hard to convince Fred not to name them Frederica and Georgina, thinking that might be tempting fate just a little too much. In the end, you’d named your first two children after the heads of your and Fred’s respective Hogwarts houses, women who’d looked after you throughout your youth and who you’d grown to adore. It felt appropriate.  
McGonagall had cried when you’d first introduced her to baby Minnie, scooping up the little bundle in her arms and promising special treatment when she made it to Hogwarts. Professor Sprout, upon meeting her namesake, had promised to name a plant after you and Fred. She’d followed through as well, and a specimen sunned itself happily on your kitchen windowsill. It had bright orange blooms and a taste for toast crusts.

“Well for one thing, if we started naming children after teachers I owed an apology to then we’d have to get a bigger house”  
You glanced around your kitchen. It was homely, and perfect for the size of your family right now, but it would definitely need to grow as your family did. You were under no illusions that your brood would stay small. Fred was from a big family and he’d always said how he wanted to have one himself.  
“Hmm, that’s true”  
“And for another thing, do you really want to have to name a child after Dolores Umbridge?”  
You stuck your tongue out. “Eww, no. That woman owed us all an apology, not the other way around”

“Is anyone, literally anyone, wearing shoes?” you called from the kitchen, where you were shoving sandwich boxes, water bottles and fruit into two backpacks.  
“Artie is, but I’m not sure where his shirt has gone. The girls each have one shoe from the same pair on” Fred called back from inside the under the stairs cupboard, where he was sifting through coats.  
You clipped the bags shut and placed them by the front door, grabbing Arthur’s shirt from where he’d shoved it into a potted plant as you did so. Deeper in the house, you could hear the twins yelling.  
Fred emerged from the cupboard, triumphantly grasping raincoats for everyone. He glanced at the child’s shirt you held. “Rock paper scissors for it?” he offered. You nodded.  
“Winner sorts Artie and the bags” you said.  
“Rock, Paper, Scissors, go” you recited together, clenched fists bobbing in time with the counts. Rock beats scissors, and Fred mimed crushing your hand with his fist.  
“Best of three?” you offered.  
“You always were a sore loser” Fred replied, grabbing the shirt from your hand and following the likely trail of the youngest family member. You sighed, picking up a pair of children’s shoes where they were neatly sat by the front door and heading towards the room Mona and Minnie shared.

Ready was not the word for the 4-year-olds. Minnie had a comb sticking out of her hair, while Mona’s dress was on backwards. Each girl wore one of a pair of blue shoes identical to the ones in your hands. When you entered, they both turned to you.  
“Minnie’s wearing my shoe!”  
“Am not! Mona’s wearing mine!”  
“Na-ah, I put it on first which means they’re my shoes”  
“No fair! I saw them first”  
Without a word, you presented each girl with the shoe they were missing from the pair in your hand. You didn’t tend to dress the twin’s identically, but sometimes having two of certain things came in handy.  
“See, Mummy has your shoes!” Minnie said, after a second of silence.  
“They’re yours!” Mona whined.  
“Actually, this one is yours” you said, taking Minnie’s empty foot and sliding the matching shoe on, “and this is yours.” You slid the other of the pair onto Mona’s foot. With a flick of your wand the comb removed itself from Minnie’s hair and began smoothing out the knots while you helped Mona swivel her dress the right way around. “There, that’s much better. We want to look nice for the animals, now don’t we”  
The girls giggled.  
“Well, a lovelier pair of monkeys I never did see” Fred’s voice came from behind you, and you turned to see your husband balancing your youngest, now fully dressed, on his hip. His remark prompted another giggle from the girls, which quickly devolved into them both chorusing ‘ooh-ooh, aah-aah’ in an approximation of monkey noises.  
“Alright you two, get moving” you called over the noise, “we’ve got to get going if we’re going to return you to your fellow monkeys.”


	3. Getting In

You’d planned your trip well. It wasn’t often you took your family out into the muggle world and you wanted to do it right, and to give your kids a taste of the childhood you’d enjoyed growing up as a muggle.  
In an effort to maintain apparent normality, you’d elected to drive to the zoo. It would, admittedly, have been easier and quicker to apparate there, but you could never be completely sure you wouldn’t end up stood in the middle of road works, or that the zoo hadn’t expanded since your last visit and you ended up inside the tiger enclosure. No, it was safer to drive. A car was something you’d decided to bring with you from your old life, and it had been a great fascination to all of the wizarding folk you knew. Your father-in-law loved nothing more than going on a drive with you, even if it was just to pop to the shops.

Despite arriving early, there was already a queue outside the zoo when you bundled out of the car. Minnie and Mona saw the entrance and were heading off before you’d even managed to get Arthur out of his car seat.  
“Hey, wait up you two!” you called, freeing your youngest from his seat while Fred wrestled to unfold his push chair. You heard a muttered swear leave his lips and watched as he quickly flicked his wand at the contraption, which immediately obeyed and set itself upright. He caught you looking and grinned. You tried to look stern.  
“What?” he asked, taking Arthur and plonking him in, “no one saw”  
“Hmmm”  
“Oh come on, I’ll not expose the whole wizarding world with a pram”  
“I’m not sure I’d be mad if you did, that would be hilarious” you said, hurrying ahead a few paces to grab your daughters before they disappeared.

“Hi, how can I help you today?” the smiley girl at the ticket kiosk asked.  
“Hello. One family ticket, please” you said, opening your purse, only to be faced with a pile of galleons, sickles and knuts, descending deeper than the small purse should technically allow, thanks to an extension charm. “Damn, wrong purse” you muttered, swinging your backpack off and rootling around, praying you’d brought your muggle money. You offered an apologetic smile at the girl. “Sorry, we’ve, uh, been travelling. Still got all my foreign money” you said, in an attempt to explain the wrong purse.  
“Oh lovely, been anywhere nice?”  
“Ireland. Visiting relatives.” You said, spitting the lie out before any of your family could say anything less believable. You could feel your face getting hot as you failed to find your other purse.  
“But mummy, we haven’t-” Mona started to say, but Fred stepped in front of her, pulling a wallet out of his pocket.  
“It’s alright, I’ve got it” he said quickly, effectively silencing the girl before she could expose your lie. “How much is it?”  
The kiosk girl smiled wider in an attempt to move past her confusion and get you into the zoo as fast as possible. “That’ll be £38 for the family ticket. Can I interest you in one of our visitor books?”  
Fred glanced to you and you shook your head slightly. “No thank you, just the entry, please” he said. Fred rifled through his wallet, staring carefully at each note and coin, not familiar enough with pound sterling to know each by sight. Eventually he managed to produce two £20 notes and slide them over, after a quick glance at you to check he was right. The girl quickly took the money, clearly as eager for this to be over as you were. She passed a ticket and a couple of colourful maps back.  
“Here are some maps of the zoo, you’ll find a list of our daily talks and events on the back. Please enjoy your day”

You thanked her and made a beeline for the doors. You were barely out of earshot of the desk, where another family was now buying tickets, when Fred turned to you. “£38. Is that good?”  
“It’s pretty good, for all five of us”  
“How many pounds to a galleon again?”  
You glanced around, making sure no one could hear him. “You’re worse than the kids” you muttered.  
“But mummy!” Mona called, tugging at your sleeve.  
“Yes, Mona?”  
“Mummy, we haven’t been to Ireland”  
“We haven’t been on holiday since last year and we went to Cornwall” Minnie confirmed.  
“I know, I know. But I couldn’t let her see my wizard money”  
“But you said lying is wrong” Mona insisted.  
“You’re right, lying is wrong. But sometimes we have to”  
“When?” Minnie asked.  
“Well, if we exposed the wizarding world by your mother flashing a few lovely coins, then life as we know it could come crashing down around our ears” Fred deadpanned. The girls blinked at him for a moment, nonplussed. But only a moment.  
“Meerkats!”  
You sighed. At least you couldn’t expose the entirety of wizarding kind by looking at the meerkats.


	4. Manticore

“Daddy is that a manticore?” Minnie asked, pointing up the hill where she’d just caught sight of the lion enclosure. The girls had a Bumper Book of Magical Creatures and it was Minerva’s favourite pastime to gaze at all of the pictures. You didn’t want to make any predictions about your children’s futures while they were still so young, but you wouldn’t be surprised if Minnie followed in her uncle Charlie’s footsteps and specialised in magical creatures.  
“What was that sweetheart?” Fred asked, only half paying attention as he watched an orange gibbon wander past the fence where your family was gathered.  
“Hey Fred, that one looks like you” you said, snickering.  
“Wow Y/N, thanks for that”  
“Any time”  
“You do realise I now have to find something which looks as uncannily like you, right?”  
You laughter died down. “Noooo”  
Fred grinned. “Oh yes. I can’t wait to find the hippos”  
“Oi!”  
“Daddy!” Minnie whined. Fred turned off his grin as he turned to her.  
“Alright, there’s no need for that kind of tone”  
“But I want to go and see the manticore!”  
“Manticore?” you asked, following the line of Minnie’s pointing. “Oh, lions”  
“I don’t think they have a manticore here, Minnie. Those are lions” Fred explained. “And we’ll get there, but there’s other things to see before we reach them”

You noticed two women standing nearby with a child about the age of your girls. The child was staring with delight at two gibbons grooming each other, asking one of the women if she could see. The other woman, however, caught your eye and smiled.  
“Manticore? That’s very advanced for her age, our son has only just figured out what a lion is”  
She laughed and you smiled obligingly. “Yes, Minnie is very interested in, um, mythical creatures.”  
You thought you’d said ‘mythical’ quietly enough for Minnie not to hear it, but her sister, and ally, was paying closer attention.  
“Mummy a manticore is magical, not myth… myth..”  
You saw only one way to play this. “Yes, of course, sorry Mona.” You turned back to the woman. “Manticore are magical not mythical”  
She smiled down at Mona, who stared back with a serious expression.  
“Of course they are. Just like mermaids and unicorns”  
“They’re nothing like mermaids or unicorns!” Mona protested. The woman was still smiling and playing alone, but you decided this was probably the right time to extract your family from the situation.  
“She just means they’re also magical, Mona” you said, taking the little girl’s hand and beginning to guide her away, offering a smile and quick wave to the other mother.  
Fred looked up and saw the two of you heading away at a less-than-relaxed pace and he ushered your other children to follow. “Come on guys, time to let someone else see the gibbons”  
He came up by your side as you stared into a nearby enclosure, eyes straining to find a small type of dear.  
“Did something happen?” he asked, voice low but not particularly concerned.  
“There’s one!” one of the twins cried, pointing at what was definitely a tree stump.  
“Mona took it upon herself to educate a lady about the status of manticores” you replied, voice equally low.  
Understanding dawned on Fred’s face. “And was this woman a receptive audience?”  
“Oh, very receptive”  
“Well that’s good”


	5. Hissssss

The reptile house was much darker than the outside, and cooler. You had to blink a little as you entered, trying to adjust. Once you could see again, however, you were faced with a long corridor-like room, lined with large tanks either side. In the short time it had taken for you to adjust, the girls had already made their way to the nearest tank, which housed two brightly coloured snakes, winding their way around some branches close to the top of their enclosure in an attempt to get closer to their heat lamp.  
You pushed Arthur over to join them, watching as one of the snakes travelled leisurely down its branch, flicking its tongue out to test the air. Minnie and Mona giggled and began sticking their tongues out at it, and then at each other.  
The next tank looked empty to you, although the sign claimed it had a snake somewhere inside. You moved on, finding yourself face to face with a king cobra coiled up amid rocks on its enclosure floor. It lifted its head up and seemed to look straight at you. Your heart beat a little faster in excitement  
“Um, hello”  
The snake did not respond.  
“Uh, hissss?”  
Someone came and stood at your elbow. You quickly stopped the hissing, before realising it was Fred. He grinned at you. “Are you trying to talk to that snake?”

“What? No! I was just… Talking to Artie” you said, a little embarrassed.  
Arthur, having no idea what was going on, stared at you for a long moment before finally going “Hisssss.”  
Fred just grinned wider. “Hiss hiss, little man” he said to his son, before turning to the snake, who still had its head raised.  
“Hello there” he said. The snake did not respond. Fred glanced your way, then back to the snake before going “hissssss.”  
“Hisssss” you said, and Arthur joined in. The snake lowered its head, going back to ignoring everything outside its tank.  
“I guess we can’t speak parseltongue then” Fred said, setting off to the next enclosure, this one containing a rather pissed off looking lizard, watching as its lunch of crickets slowly hopped away.  
“Didn’t Harry have an incident with parseltongue at a zoo once?” you asked, turning to check the girls hadn’t wandered too far. They were a couple of tanks away, trying to lick their eyes like the lizard they were looking at.  
Fred laughed. “Yeah, set a boa on his cousin”  
“Seriously? Like, a boa constrictor?”  
“Yep”  
“Remind me never to piss him off in future”  
“Well, as he doesn’t have access to dangerous snakes regularly, I think you’re ok”

Towards the end of the reptile house, you found a tank containing some small, bright orange frogs. They hopped in and out of foliage, climbing up branches and trying to catch the insects they had been given for lunch.  
“Can you see the frogs, Artie?” you asked, picking the toddler out of the pushchair so he could see better. “Shall we count them?”  
You pointed at each frog in turn, holding Arthur’s hand and guiding it so he could point too, until you reached a total of 7. The number twigged something in your brain.  
“Hey Fred!” You called, and your husband looked up from where he was trying to locate a chameleon. “Come and look at this!”  
He meandered over. “What is it?”  
“I think I’ve found you and your siblings in frog form”  
“You what?”  
You gestured to the bright orange frogs. “There’s seven of them”  
Fred did not look impressed. “You know you can’t just compare me to every single animal you see that is even vaguely orange, right?”  
You turned back to the frogs. “So which one do we think is you?”  
Fred rolled his eyes, but while you were busily trying to match all the Weasley siblings to frogs you didn’t see him smiling at you fondly.


End file.
